Golf expert Ben Coley is backing Phil Mickelson to upstage Jon Rahm in the CareerBuilder Challenge.
Recommended bets
2.5pts e.w. Phil Mickelson at 28/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Aaron Wise at 150/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
0.5pt e.w. Beau Hossler at 250/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
0.5pt e.w. John Peterson at 250/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
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Regular readers who also follow golf's calendar closely, skip to paragraph eight for the hard stuff. For the rest, this week marks the start of the PGA Tour's stay on the west coast, and it's fairly low-key when set alongside the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
Granted, Jon Rahm is in town and for the golden oldies there's also the small matter of Phil Mickelson, but we will see stronger fields and much more iconic golf locations in the weeks to come.
The roll-of-honour in the CareerBuilder Challenge, which takes in three courses before a 54-hole cut determines which players can have another crack at one of them, tells you a lot. Although Mickelson features twice and Arnold Palmer used to win it every other year, names like Mark Wilson, Brian Gay and even Hudson Swafford confirm that this is something of a Tier 2 event.
This is a good thing and there is some temptation to simply row in with Rahm given that he appears to have little to beat and has enjoyed a rise so meteoric that double-figure prices look generous. He first shot to fame with a top-five finish at TPC Scottsdale, a decent pointer towards success here at PGA West, and his first victory came in California at Torrey Pines. The vibes are good.
All that being said, the nit-picker in me can't ignore the fact that while Rahm might outclass the field, his occasional weakness is wedge play while the ability to larrup the ball 350 yards despite refusing to complete a back-swing isn't all that much of an advantage here. None of the three courses used are Valderrama and he can hit driver as often as he pleases but if Jason Dufner and Swafford tells us anything, it's that a little more control might prove advantageous.
Dufner won the first renewal of the event in which 36 of the 72 holes were played at the Stadium Course, a tricky-ish Pete Dye design, before Swafford took over with his breakthrough victory last year. Neither man excels around the greens, so the temptation is to suggest that while this is undoubtedly a shootout, first and foremost the job is to create enough opportunities. As ever, great putters still need to build a platform.
That said, many of those in closest pursuit help paint a different picture and the truth is, there really isn't much of a pattern to be established. This is essentially as simple as golf on the PGA Tour gets: wide fairways, few real hazards, pure greens and little in the way of intervention from the weather. It's hard to rule anyone out.
My hope is that Phil Mickelson can bring forth the ultimate combination of quality wedge play and dead-eye putting which have provided the foundations of a brilliant career, thus returning to winning ways for the first time since the 2013 Open Championship.
Therein lies the chief negative for Mickelson, the total absence of recent winning form, but no way is he over the hill and I was really quite taken by his language in a brief interview with noted scoop-lander Tim Rosaforte.
"I’ve put in a lot of time in [the] off-season, getting ready [for] this year," he said. "I’m physically a lot stronger. I’ve been practicing and working to get my game sharp. I don’t know how it’s going to start out, but I’m very optimistic."
Contrast that with a year ago, when Mickelson arrived here with close to zero expectations having had two surgeries since his last competitive outing. In fact, his first full round of golf in over three months came the Saturday before tournament week, so the only thing surprising about a performance which tapered off to 21st was that it started so well.
Back in 2016, Mickelson was putting into place some pretty serious swing changes and said he felt like this event came a week too soon as he finished an elated third, contending throughout. Crucially, he was bogey-free across two rounds at PGA West on its reintroduction, which allays concerns that he struggled there in 2017.
This time, with the Ryder Cup firmly in focus, there appear to be no such excuses and given that he signed off last year in really strong form - including here in California - that makes him the biggest threat to Rahm in my eyes. Time waits for no man and all that, but in an event he's won twice and never failed to make Sunday, I rate Mickelson's chances better than in-form Brian Harman, as well as former winner Patrick Reed and the rest.
Despite the changes to the rotation, birdie average has remained a key pointer over the last couple of years - eight of the top 10 in 2016 ended that year inside the Tour's top 25% - and Mickelson has been a consistent feature throughout his career, including the years subsequent to his Open victory.
The absence since October must be something of a concern given that we're talking about a 47-year-old but almost half of his 44 PGA Tour wins have come prior to Augusta and, as mentioned, it looks like the left-handed magician has done much more in the off-season than has been the case in recent years.
We're relying on Mickelson having given an honest assessment but he's been good for that in the past and, at the price and in an event where most have some kind of question to answer, he's worth a decent each-way bet.
Those who read every word of my 2018 Money List preview may have noticed that I put forward this event as a decent opportunity for Aaron Wise and Beau Hossler, and nothing has changed my mind on that since.
Justin Thomas threatened to win it straight off the Web.com Tour and the three courses used are set up straightforwardly, much like most of the events on the feeder circuit.
Hossler is from California and boasts a putting touch to die for. He's already contended over in Nevada at a desert TPC course and a missed cut in the Sony Open doesn't worry me too much.
The 22-year-old actually started very nicely but endured a nightmare hour on Friday, but for which he'd have sailed through to the weekend, and I expect we'll see much more from him here in what looks a markedly weaker field.
Wise has played several rounds at PGA West, including a play-off defeat (in his words) on the Future Champions Tour a couple of years ago.
Like Hossler, he is a fabulous talent and in six events so far this season, has cashed three very decent cheques. Wise played well here last year on a sponsors' invite and can put that experience to good use having long been earmarked as a top-class talent in the making.
Finally, while Scott Piercy and Robert Garrigus could well feature, and last week's nearly-man Tom Hoge might prove capable of putting Sunday's disappointment behind him, I'm drawn to John Peterson at a bigger price.
This formerly excellent young talent hasn't fulfilled his potential just yet, chiefly due to an injury which means he's now playing on a major medical. That gives him eight starts to make enough money to earn back his full playing status and it's a challenge he's approaching in a rather unique way.
"Man, it's just attitude," Peterson said last week in Hawaii, where he played really well across the opening two rounds before a poor Saturday.
"If my attitude is good, I'm going to play good. I've never been in a better spot lifestyle-wise than I am right now, so that probably has a lot to do with it. My wife's here. My boy's here. My in-laws are here.
"I've got eight events to make $350,000. If I do, great. If I don't, who cares? I'm just out here free-wheeling it. We're just enjoying it. I've got 32 rounds, and we'll see what happens."
Peterson says he doesn't want to be a "FaceTime dad" and will consider giving up golf altogether if this doesn't work out, and the evidence of last week - his first start since the summer - is that he might just be all the better for adopting such an approach.
He shot an opening 64 here in 2015, a round he felt could and should have been a good deal lower, and is a very similar player to Dufner in that creating chances should not be a problem - he was in fact second for strokes-gained approach shots at the Sony, which is a great starting point here.
Peterson first came to prominence when nearly winning the US Open here in California and is worth a small bet in a devilishly difficult event to solve, one in which the claims of Mickelson appear second if not to none, then only to one.
Posted at 2035 GMT on 16/01/18.
